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A school of life: the 'Prayer of Abandon' of Charles de Foucauld

The last photo of Charles de Foucauld

I have often regretted that
more is not available in English on the life and spirituality of
Charles de Foucauld. So I was glad when Robert Ellsberg
recently re-published some of Charles' writings in Orbis' "Modern
Spiritual Masters" series. At the same time Br. Antoine
Chatelard, a little brother of Jesus, continues doing research into the
life and writings of Charles, most of which, unfortunately, has not
been translated from French. In this article I will draw on many of
Antoine's insights and in particular, those about de Foucauld's
well-known Prayer of Abandon."

Simple Presence and Friendship

For those who do not know him,
Charles de Foucauld was killed in 1916 in the Sahara Desert. He had
gone there to live in the image of "Jesus of Nazareth"; to live a life
of deep prayer among the people of North Africa, a sort of
evangelization through simple presence and friendship.

He had been born into a
wealthy, French family, and orphaned as a child. He lost his faith and
wandered unhappily for many years. His rediscovery of faith radically
changed him and gave meaning and direction to his life. Charles then
spent seven years as a Trappist monk and three years as a hermit in
Nazareth, years in which his understanding of his vocation evolved
through a life rooted in prayer and meditation on the scriptures. It
was at the end of this period that he felt led to the Sahara and to the
people who lived there.

An intimate portrait

The Prayer of Abandon has been
used in many contexts. To understand it from Charles' perspective you
have to know that his prayer style was very Jesus-centered, the fruit
of a deep personal relationship with Jesus. There was nothing abstract
about his prayer. He often dialogued with Jesus (today we would call it
active imagination) and he wrote many of these conversations down as a
way of helping him to focus his prayer, especially in times of dryness.

The Prayer of Abandon was not
written as a spiritual testament at the end of Charles' life. In fact,
he wrote it in the early years as a Trappist. The well-known text is
actually taken from a longer meditation, a prayer that Charles puts
onto the lips of a dying, crucified Jesus. That is important to know.
And as with most of our prayers and meditations, it reveals more about
Charles' own relationship with God than that of Jesus. As it was never
meant to be read by others, it paints a very intimate portrait.

I am using the text as it is
more popularly known rather than the complete text. The difference
mainly lies in the removal of repetitions.

Charles introduces the
meditation with these words:

"It is the last prayer
of our Master, of our Beloved... may it be ours... May it not only be
the prayer of our last moment but that of all our moments."

"Father, I abandon myself into your hands. Do with
me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you. I am ready for all,
I accept all. Let only your will be done in me and in all your
creatures. I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend
my soul. I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love
you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your
hands without reserve and with boundless confidence, For you are my
Father."

An obstacle to praying

Possibly one of the biggest
obstacles to our praying of this prayer along with Charles and Jesus is
our wounded trust. We might want to take a few moments to consider how
we trust. We might want to give thanks for those moments when we were
able to trust in the face of difficulties and for the peace and sense
of inner freedom that was born of that trust. We might also want to
consider the things that are obstacles to our trust. Charles himself
had to learn to trust, having not only been orphaned, but then seeing
so many other significant people in his young life taken away in one
way or another. We can only speculate as to the role all of this played
in the loss of his faith.

An obstacle to communion

Trust is finally an essential
element for communion whether with God, others or even our own selves.
Without trust we are unable to build that community of disciples of the
One who showed us the way to love.

Not resignation but love

So, let us now turn to the
text. For Charles, Jesus is praying to the One whom he calls "Abba,
Father." It is not a prayer of resignation but a prayer of love. It is
the abandon of a love that is capable of throwing itself into the arms
of the beloved. It trusts the beloved to be there.

A 'eucharistic prayer'

It is a very "eucharistic"
prayer. It is Jesus' act of self-offering
"with all the love of my heart".

It is a very active
self-giving of the one who said,
"No one takes my life, it is I who
give it."

It is eucharistic in that it
is a prayer of thanksgiving.
"I thank you for all, I am ready for
all, I accept all."

In the original text this
thanksgiving is repeated three times and is linked not only with the
desire to be one who does the Will of God but as one who receives the
Will of God into his life and prays for its fulfillment in all of
creation. Jesus', and Charles', one desire is to do the Will of God, to
be obedient.

How will
Jesus live his death?

The Prayer of Abandon is the
prayer of the Cross. Jesus is no longer praying for the cup to pass nor
even for the strength to drink this cup. That was yesterday and so many
things have happened in between. Jesus is dying now and there is no
escape.

The only choice that is left
at this hour is that of how Jesus will live his death. What will be his
attitude? He can revolt in the face of the injustice of it, for it is
unjust. He can be embittered by the jeers and mocking. He can turn to
hardened resignation - but Jesus chooses to live this moment with a
love that is really hard for us to grasp or imagine.

Love that defies the power of death

This prayer is a declaration
of a love that defies the power of death. It proclaims a love capable
of trust, a trust in the power of love even in the face of
annihilation. Jesus believes that love will have the last word.

Jesus alone

Charles shows us a Jesus who
seems to be alone. It is no longer the moment of the "our Father".
There is a tremendous intimacy in the way Jesus calls God "my Father".
Jesus is facing the deepest solitude of which we are not only capable,
but must all ultimately face.

It is the threshold where we
are each alone. Jesus is literally at the point of losing himself and
he loses himself in the Father. "For you are my Father". It is the
abandon of love.

Grow into the likeness of Jesus

Charles de Foucauld made a
conscious effort in his daily life to grow into the likeness of Jesus,
his "beloved brother and Lord." He had to struggle with himself just as
we do with ourselves.

Charles does not refer
explicitly to the 'Prayer of Abandon' throughout his life. But from his
other writings and what we know of his life it seems to have expressed
his basic attitude towards God, one that saw him through the ups and
downs and struggles - and ultimately, in the face of his own violent
death. It was a school of life as well as of death.

Our own experiences of love and trust

We will pray this prayer very
differently according to our own experiences of love and trust. The
brokeness of our world deeply affects our desire and our ability to
trust. If the most fortunate among us can think of so many reasons to
be cautious, what of those who have been deeply wounded? Who of us has
not been betrayed at one time or another? But, in the last analysis, is
it not the deepest yearning of our heart to let go and to abandon
ourselves to love?

Charles introduced this
meditation saying,

"May it not
only be the prayer of our last moment but that of all our moments."

Charles de Foucauld's 'Prayer of Abandon' has
become the 'family prayer' of those inspired by his example (even if it
is one that some of us cannot quite bring ourselves to say!). Here
Little Sister Cathy shares some of the insights of Little Brother
Antoine and her own reflections on the prayer.

Jesus' great solidarity with us is precisely
expressed in his aloneness at this moment